It has been said that the traveler who has visited either John O’Groats or Land’s End never feels at ease until he has both of these places to his “credit.” I should be loath to confess that such a feeling had anything to do with our setting out from London with Land’s End as an ill-defined objective, though appearances may indeed favor such an inference. Once before we were within ten miles of the spot and did not feel interested enough to take the few hours for the trip. But now we have spent a night at John O’Groats—and have no very pleasant recollection of it, either—and should we ever tell of our exploit the first question would be, “And did you go to Land’s End?” Be that as it may, we find ourselves carefully picking our way through the crowded Oxford street which changes its name a half dozen times before we come out into the Staines Road. We are not in the best of humor, for it was two o’clock when we left our hotel—we had planned to start at nine in the morning! But a refractory magneto in the hands of an English repair man—who had promised it on the day before—was an article we could not very well leave behind.

Our itinerary—we never really made one, except in imagination—called for the night at Dorchester. We had previously passed through the pleasant old capital of the “Hardy Country” and felt a longing for a closer acquaintance. But Dorchester is one hundred and thirty miles from London and our usual leisurely jog will never get us there before nightfall—a fact still more apparent when we find nearly an hour has been consumed in covering the dozen miles to Staines. We shall have to open up a little—a resolution that receives a decided chill when a gentlemanly Automobile Association scout, seeing the emblem on our engine hood, salutes us with, “Caution, Sir! Police traps all the way to Basingstoke.” We take some chances nevertheless, but slow down when we come to a hedgerow or other suspicious object which we fancy may afford concealment for the despised motor “cop.” At Basingstoke a second scout pronounces the way clear to Andover and Salisbury and the fine undulating road offers every opportunity to make up for lost time—and police traps. If the speed limit had been twice twenty miles per hour, I fear we might—but we are not bound to incriminate ourselves!

Salisbury’s splendid spire—the loftiest and most graceful in all Britain—soon arises athwart the sunset sky and we glide through the tortuous streets of the town as swiftly as seems prudent. The road to Blandford is equally good and just at dusk we enter the village of Puddletown, stretching for half a mile along the roadside. Its name is not prepossessing, but Puddletown has a church that stands to-day as it stood nearly three hundred years ago, for it has not as yet fallen into the hands of the restorer. Its paneled and beamed ceiling of Spanish chestnut, innocent of paint or varnish, its oaken pews which seated the Roundheads and Royalists of Cromwell’s day, its old-fashioned pulpit and its queer baptismal font, are those of the country church of nearly three centuries ago. The village is a cozy, beflowered place on a clear little river, whose name, the Puddle, is the only thing to prejudice one against it. Just adjoining Puddletown is Aethelhampton Court, the finest country house in Dorset, which has been inhabited by one family, the Martins, for four hundred years.

Darkness is setting in when we drive into the courtyard of the King’s Arms in Dorchester. It is a wild, windy evening; rain is threatening and under such conditions the comfortable old house seems an opportune haven indeed. It is a characteristic English inn such as Dickens eulogizes in “Pickwick Papers”—one where “everything looks—as everything always does in all decent English inns—as if the travelers had been expected and their comforts prepared for days beforehand.” There is a large, well-furnished sitting-room awaiting us, with bedrooms to match, and the evening meal is ready on a table resplendent with fresh linen and glittering silver. In a cabinet in the corner of the dining-room is an elaborate silver tea-service with the legend, “Used by His August Majesty King Edward VII. when as Prince of Wales he was a guest of the King’s Arms, Dorchester, on—” but we have quite forgotten the date. A rather recent and innocent tradition, but perhaps the traveler of two centuries hence may be duly impressed, for the silver service will be there if the King’s Arms is still standing. It is an irregular old house, built nobody knows just when, and added to from time to time as occasion required. The lack of design is delightfully apparent; it is a medley of scattered apartments and winding hallways. It would fit perfectly into a Dickens novel—indeed, with the wind howling furiously outside and the rain fitfully lashing the panes we think of the stormy night at the Maypole in “Barnaby Rudge.” But it has been a rather trying day and our musings soon fade into pleasant dreams when we are once ensconced in the capacious beds of the King’s Arms.

One can spend a profitable half day in Dorchester and a much longer time might be consumed in exploring the immediate vicinity. There are two fine churches, All Saints’, with a tall slender spire, and St. Peter’s, with a square, battlemented tower from which peal the chimes of the town clock. In the latter church is a tomb which may interest the few Americans who come to Dorchester, since beneath it is buried Rev. John White, who took an active part in founding Massachusetts Colony. In 1624 he despatched a company of Dorset men to the new colony, raising money for them, procuring their charter and later sending out as the first governor, John Endicott of Dorchester, who sailed for New England in 1629 in the “George Bona Ventura.” In both churches there is an unusual number of effigies and monuments which probably escaped because of Dorchester’s friendliness for the Parliamentary cause—but none of them commemorates famous people. Outside St. Peter’s there is a statue to William Barnes, the Dorset poet, with an inscription from one of his own poems which illustrates the quaint dialect he employed:

The county museum, adjoining the church, contains one of the best provincial collections in England. The vicinity is noted for Roman remains and a number of the most remarkable have found a resting-place here. There are curiosities galore in the shape of medieval implements of torture, among them a pair of heavy leaden weights labeled “Mercy,” which a tender-hearted jailer ordered tied to the feet of a man hanged for arson as late as 1836, so he would strangle more quickly. There are relics of Jeffreys’ dread court, the chair he used when sentencing the Dorset peasants to transportation and death and the iron spikes on which the heads of the rebels were exposed to blacken in the sun. There is much besides horrors in Dorchester Museum, though I suppose the gruesome and horrible will always get the greater share of attention. And such things are not without their educational and moral value, for they speak eloquently of the progress the human race has made to render such implements of torture only objects of shuddering curiosity.

To the admirer of Thomas Hardy, the novelist, Dorchester will always have a peculiar interest, for here the master still lives, much alone, in a little house near the town, his simple life and habits scarcely differentiating him from the humblest Wessex peasant. I say “the novelist,” for another Thomas Hardy was also a Dorchester man—the admiral who supported the dying Nelson at Trafalgar. The great writer, however, is known to all the townsmen and is universally admired and revered. Shortly after our visit the people of the town essayed a fete in his honor, the chief feature being two plays adapted from Wessex tales. Mr. Hardy, though in his seventy-second year, followed the rehearsals closely, sitting night after night in a dark corner of the auditorium. A correspondent described him as “a grave, gray little figure with waxed moustache ends and bright vigilant eyes, who rose occasionally to make a suggestion, speaking almost apologetically as if asking a favor.” His suggestions usually had to do with the character and effect of word cadences. Nothing could exceed his sensitiveness to the harmonies of speech. “Will you let me see the book, please?” he would say. “I think that sentence does not sound right; I will alter it a little.”

He also personally arranged the hornpipe dance by shepherds in the cottage where three wayfarers take shelter from a storm. The music was played by a fiddler nearly eighty years old who used to make a living by such rustic merrymakings and who is perhaps the last survivor of the race of fiddlers in Dorset. All the actors belonged to the town. One is a cooper, another a saddler, and there were clerks and solicitors and auctioneers. The producer who designed all the scenery is a monument mason and ex-mayor of Dorchester.

It is perhaps too early to predict the place of Thomas Hardy in literature, though there be those who rank him with George Eliot. His home town, which he has given to fame as the Casterbridge of his tales, has no misgivings about the matter and freely ranks him with the immortals. The chilling philosophy of many of his books has not hidden his warm heart from his townsmen, who resent the word “stony” applied to him by an American writer. They say that his unpretentious life, his affability, his consideration for others and his modesty, all teach the lessons of love and hope, and that nothing is farther from his personal character than misanthropy or coldness.

The history of Dorchester differs not greatly from that of many other English towns of its class. A Roman station undoubtedly existed here. The town was mentioned in the Doomsday Book and was a village of good size in the reign of Henry VIII. In 1613 it was totally destroyed by fire—a calamity which the citizens declared a “visitacion of God’s wrath,” to appease which they founded an almshouse and hospital. With business foresight they also established a brewery, the profits from which were expected to maintain the hospital, and the grave records show no intimation of any question whether such a plan might be acceptable to the Deity they sought to placate.

Dorchester was strongly for the Parliament in the unpleasantness between Oliver and the king, but its loyalty was not very aggressive, for it surrendered to the royal army with scarcely a show of resistance—the more to its discredit, since it had been elaborately fortified and was well supplied with munitions of war. It suffered severely for its cowardice, for it was taken and retaken many times during the war and its citizens subjected to numberless exactions and indignities. The ascendency of the commonwealth brought Dorchester comparative peace for three or four decades. The next notable event in its career was the coming of Jeffreys the infamous to judge the unfortunate Dorset men who inclined, or were alleged to have inclined, towards the Duke of Monmouth in his ill-starred attempt on the throne of England. To expedite matters, Jeffreys let it be understood that a plea of guilty would predispose him to mercy, but the poor wretches who fell into this trap were sentenced to death or transportation on their own confessions. The charge lodged against most of the unfortunates was that they were “away from their habitacions att the tyme of the rebellion.”

For more than two centuries after this carnival of death, sanctioned by a corrupt and vengeful government, Dorchester has pursued the paths of unbroken peace and has grown and prospered in a quiet way. The fame of Thomas Hardy attracts many and the roving motor car also brings an increasing number of pilgrims, none of whom go away disappointed. It is a trim old town, still picturesque, though modern improvements are making inroads on its antique quaintness. Its environs are singularly beautiful; the country roads enter the town between ranks of splendid trees and the avenues around the town are bordered with giant limes, sycamores and chestnuts. The River Frome glides quietly past the place through reedy meadows and the smooth green sward covers the ancient Roman amphitheatre which adjoins the town on the south. This is by far the most perfect work of its kind in Britain; it is about two hundred feet in diameter and must have accommodated some twelve thousand spectators. It lies just along the road by which we leave the town and which runs almost due west to Bridport, Lyme Regis and Exeter. For some miles we pursue a sinuous course across the barren country and occasionally encounter forbiddingly steep grades. At Bridport we catch our first glimpse of a placidly blue sea, which frequently flashes through gaps in the hills for the next twenty miles.

At Lyme Regis the road pitches down a sharp hill into the town, which covers the slopes of a ravinelike valley. It is a retired little seaside resort, though red roofs of modern villas now contrast somewhat with its rural appearance. No railroad comes within several miles of the place, which has a permanent population of only two thousand. It is not without historic tradition, for here the Duke of Monmouth landed on his ill-fated invasion to which we have already referred. The town was a favorite haunt of Jane Austen and here she located one of the memorable scenes in “Persuasion.” It is still a very quiet place—a retreat for those seeking real seclusion and freedom from the formality and turmoil of the larger and more fashionable resorts. Its tiny harbor, encircled by a crescent-shape sweep of cliffs, is almost innocent of craft to-day, though there was a time when it ranked high among the western ports. It is one of those delightful old villages one occasionally finds in England, standing now nearly as they did three centuries ago, while the great world has swept away from them.

We wish we might tarry a day in Lyme Regis, but our plans will not permit it now. We climb the precipitously steep, irregular road that takes us out of the place, though we cast many backward glances at the little town and quiet blue-green harbor edged by a scimiterlike strip of silver sand. The Exeter road is much the same as that between Lyme Regis and Dorchester—winding, steep, narrow and rough in places—and the deadly Devonshire hedgerow on a high earthen ridge now shuts out our view of the landscape much of the time. Devon and Cornwall, with the most charming scenery in England, would easily become a great motoring ground if the people would mend the roads and eradicate the hedgerows.

At Exeter we stop at the Rougemont for lunch, despite the recollection of pretty high charges on a former occasion. It is one of the best provincial hotels, if it is far from the cheapest. A drizzling rain is falling when we leave the cathedral city for Newton Abbot and Totnes, directly to the south; in the market-place of the first-named town is the stone upon which William III. was proclaimed king after his landing at Brixham.

Totnes, seven miles farther, has many quaint old houses with odd piazzas and projecting timbered gables, which give the streets a decidedly antique appearance. Here, too, is another famous stone, the identical one upon which Brutus of Troy first set foot when landing in Britain at a date so remote that it can only be guessed at. Indeed, there be wiseacres who freely declare that the Roman prince never set foot on it at all; but we are in no mood for such scepticism to-day, when cruising about in a steady rain seeking “objects of interest,” as the road-book styles them. Of Totnes Castle only the foundations remain, though it must have been a concentric, circular structure like that of Launceston. From its walls on fair days there is a lovely, far-reaching view quite shut out from us by the gray mist that hovers over the valley—a scene described by a writer more fortunate than we as “a rich soft country which stretches far and wide, a land of swelling hills and richly wooded valleys and green corn springing over the red earth. Northwards on the skyline, the Dartmoor hills lie blue and seeming infinitely distant in the light morning haze; while in the opposite direction, one sees a long straight reach of river, set most sweetly among the hills, up which the salt tide is pouring from Dartmouth so rapidly that it grows wider every moment, and the bitter sea air which travels with it from the Channel reaches as far as the battlements on which we stand. Up that reach the Totnes merchants, standing on these old walls, used to watch their argosies sailing with the tide, homeward bound from Italy or Spain, laden with precious wines and spices.”

But no one who visits Totnes—even though the day be rainy and disagreeable—should fail to see Berry Pomeroy Castle, which common consent declares the noblest ruin in all Devon and Cornwall. We miss the main road to the village of Berry and approach the ruin from the rear by a narrow, muddy lane winding over steep grades through a dense forest. We are not sure whether we are fortunate or otherwise in coming to the shattered haunt of the fierce old de Pomeroys on such a day. Perhaps its grim traditions and its legends of ghostly habitants seem the more realistic under such a lowering sky—and it may be that the gloomy day comports best with the scene of desolation and ruined grandeur which breaks on our vision.

The castle was an unusual combination of medieval fortress and palatial dwelling house, the great towers still flanking the entrance suggesting immense defensive strength, as does the situation on the edge of a rocky precipice. The walls are pierced by multitudes of mullioned windows—so many, indeed, an old chronicle records, that it was “a day’s work for a servant to open and close the casements.” In some details the more modern remnants of the structure remind one of Cowdray Palace—especially the great window groups. Verily, “ruin greenly dwells” at Berry Pomeroy Castle. Ivy mantles every inch of the walls and some fragments, rising tall and slender like chimneys, are green to the very tops. The green sward runs riot over the inner courts and covers fallen masses of debris; great trees, some of them doubtless as old as the castle itself, sway their branches above it; our pictures tell the story, perhaps better than any words, of the rank greenness that seems even more intense in the falling rain.

One quite forgets the stirring history of the castle—and it is stirring, for does not tradition record that its one-time owners urged their maddened steeds to spring to death with their riders from the beetling precipice on which the castle stands, rather than to surrender to victorious besiegers?—I say one forgets even this in the rather creepy sensations that come over him when he recalls the ghostly legends of the place. For Berry Pomeroy Castle has one of the most blood-curdling and best authenticated ghost stories that it has been my lot to read. It has a weird interest that warrants retelling here and the reader who has no liking for such things may skip it if he chooses.

“Somewhat more than a century ago, Dr. Walter Farquhar, who was created a baronet in 1796, made a temporary sojourn in Torquay. This physician was quite a young man at that time and had not acquired the reputation which, after his settlement in London, procured him the confidence and even friendship of royalty. One day, during his stay in Devon, he was summoned professionally to Berry Pomeroy Castle, a portion of which building was still occupied by a steward and his wife. The latter was seriously ill, and it was to see her that the physician had been called in. Previous to seeing his patient Dr. Farquhar was shown an outer apartment and requested to remain there until she was prepared to see him. This apartment was large and ill-proportioned; around it ran richly carved panels of oak that age had changed to the hue of ebony. The only light in the room was admitted through the chequered panes of a gorgeously stained window, in which were emblazoned the arms of the former lords of Berry Pomeroy. In one corner, to the right of the wide fireplace, was a flight of dark oaken steps, forming part of a staircase leading apparently to some chamber above; and on these stairs the fading gleams of summer’s twilight shone through.

“While Dr. Farquhar wondered, and, if the truth be told, chafed at the delay which had been interposed between him and his patient, the door opened, and a richly dressed female entered the apartment. He, supposing her to be one of the family, advanced to meet her. Unheeding him, she crossed the room with a hurried step, wringing her hands and exhibiting by her motions the deepest distress. When she reached the foot of the stairs, she paused for an instant and then began to ascend them with the same hasty step and agitated demeanour. As she reached the highest stair the light fell strongly on her features and displayed a countenance youthful, indeed, and beautiful, but in which vice and despair strove for mastery. ‘If ever human face,’ to use the doctor’s own words, ‘exhibited agony and remorse; if ever eye, that index of the soul, portrayed anguish uncheered by hope and suffering without interval; if ever features betrayed that within the wearer’s bosom there dwelt a hell, those features and that being were then present to me.’

“Before he could make up his mind on the nature of this strange occurrence, he was summoned to the bedside of his patient. He found the lady so ill as to require his undivided attention, and had no opportunity, and in fact no wish, to ask any questions which bore on a different subject to her illness.

“But on the following morning, when he repeated his visit and found the sufferer materially better, he communicated what he had witnessed to the husband and expressed a wish for some explanation. The steward’s countenance fell during the physician’s narrative and at its close he mournfully ejaculated:

“‘My poor wife! my poor wife!’

“‘Why, how does this relation affect her?’

“‘Much, much!’ replied the steward, vehemently. ‘That it should have come to this! I cannot—cannot lose her! You know not,’ he continued in a milder tone, ‘the strange, sad history; and—and his lordship is extremely averse to any allusion being ever made to the circumstance or any importance attached to it; but I must and will out with it! The figure which you saw is supposed to represent the daughter of a former baron of Berry Pomeroy, who was guilty of an unspeakable crime in that chamber above us; and whenever death is about to visit the inmates of the castle she is seen wending her way to the scene of her crimes with the frenzied gestures you describe. The day my son was drowned she was observed; and now my wife!’

“‘I assure you she is better. The most alarming symptoms have given way and all immediate danger is at an end.’

“‘I have lived in and near the castle thirty years,’ was the steward’s desponding reply, ‘and never knew the omen fail.’

“‘Arguments on omens are absurd,’ said the doctor, rising to take his leave. ‘A few days, however, will, I trust, verify my prognostics and see Mrs. S—— recovered.’

“They parted, mutually dissatisfied. The lady died at noon.

“Years intervened and brought with them many changes. The doctor rose rapidly and deservedly into repute; became the favourite physician and even personal friend of the Prince Regent, was created a baronet, and ranked among the highest authorities in the medical world.

“When he was at the zenith of his professional career, a lady called on him to consult him about her sister, whom she described as sinking, overcome and heartbroken by a supernatural appearance.

“‘I am aware of the apparent absurdity of the details which I am about to give,’ she began, ‘but the case will be unintelligible to you, Sir Walter, without them. While residing at Torquay last summer, we drove over one morning to visit the splendid remains of Berry Pomeroy Castle. The steward was very ill at the time (he died, in fact, while we were going over the ruins,) and there was some difficulty in getting the keys. While my brother and I went in search of them, my sister was left alone for a few moments in a large room on the ground-floor; and while there—most absurd fancy!—she has persuaded herself she saw a female enter and pass her in a state of indescribable distress. This spectre, I suppose I must call her, horribly alarmed her. Its features and gestures have made an impression, she says, which no time can efface. I am well aware of what you will say, that nothing can possibly be more preposterous. We have tried to rally her out of it, but the more heartily we laugh at her folly, the more agitated and excited does she become. In fact, I fear we have aggravated her disorder by the scorn with which we have treated it. For my own part, I am satisfied her impressions are erroneous, and rise entirely from a depraved state of the bodily organs. We wish for your opinion and are most anxious you should visit her without delay.’

“‘Madam, I will make a point of seeing your sister immediately; but it is no delusion. This I think it proper to state most positively, and previous to any interview. I, myself, saw the same figure, under somewhat similar circumstances and about the same hour of the day; and I should decidedly oppose any raillery or incredulity being expressed on the subject in your sister’s presence.’

“Sir Walter saw the young lady next day and after being for a short time under his care she recovered.

“Our authority for the above account of how Berry Pomeroy Castle is haunted derived it from Sir Walter Farquhar, who was a man even more noted for his probity and veracity than for his professional attainments, high as they were rated. The story has been told as nearly as possible in Sir Walter’s own words.”

Yonder is the “ghost’s walk,” along that tottering wall; yonder is the door the apparition is said to enter. If you can stand amidst these deserted ruins on a dark, lowering evening and feel no qualms of nervousness after reading the tale, I think you are quite able to laugh all ghosts to scorn.

We have lingered long enough at Berry Pomeroy—we can scarce cover the twenty miles to Plymouth ere darkness sets in. But fortune favors us; at Totnes the rain ceases and a red tinge breaks through the clouds which obscure the western sky. We have a glorious dash over the wet road which winds through some of the loveliest of Devonshire landscapes. Midway, from the hilltop that dominates the vale of the Erme, we get a view of Ivy Bridge, a pleasant village lying along the clear river, half hidden in the purple haze of evening; and just at dusk we glide into the city of the Pilgrim Fathers.